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So here we are, stranded indefinately in Uspallata, one of the most uninteresting tiny towns i´ve ever encountered. Its only vaguely interesting point is that it's where they filmed 7 years in Tibet. I´d rather be in Tibet. Its Wednesday, our 3 day of sitting twiddling our thumbs waiting for the Los Libertadores pass, which goes through the Andes to Chile, to open. The town is full of truck cabs waiting for the same thing. Everything (apart from this internet cafe) closes from about 2 til 6 which leaves us with sitting in our cheap hotel room (which has no natural light) watching s*** subtitled american tv on fox. last night there was no light at all. at about 5.30 the power cut out throughout the town. it was still off when we went to bed.
we are slowly dying of boredom and crossing all our fingers and toes that the locals are right and the border might reopen tomorrow.
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So tomorrow came. Thursday - the day all the locals had been saying the pass would reopen. And it did! BUT no buses. Suddenly the town was alot emptier and we were still holed up in our room watching bad FBI shows on Fox. There were SIX powercuts over the course of the day, starting in the late afternoon and eventually driving us to bed. After the first one started we headed out to 'tibet bar' for a few large bottles of quilmes (the national blonde beer of which we have become big fans. it tends to cost about a pound a litre.) We bumped into this terribly posh sounding couple from oxford who were staying in our hotel. they had just come back from a day of trekking and were drinking with their guide and tour companions. we also met a scottish-kiwi couple who live in australia and are doing a similar south american trip to us but in reverse. after much discussion with the 2 couples who were trying to cheer us up, we made an important decision. If the pass didn't open the next day (even though we had a hostel reservation in santiago which we'd been calling to delay all week, even though aislinns card was being delivered to santiago, even though we really wanted to go) the boredom was driving us mad so we wouls skip santiago and valparaiso and head north to salta and cross to the chilean desert from there.
And then it opened. At last we were able to make the loooong journey to santiago. Its not far, but the road conditions, the backlog of people crossing and having to go through customs meant it was one looong journey. The argentine side went smoothly, we passed through the tunnel, saw the welcome to chile signs and then sat in a bus queue for customs for about 4 hours. But at long last we were in Chile...
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